


Chaos and hate shadow me, pain it fills me up. Only one thing makes me feel, missing better half of me.

by Trophy_Kill1991



Series: The Ghosts That We Knew [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Fantasizing, Feels, Gay Sex, Heterosexual Sex, Hugs all around, Hypnosis, M/M, Masturbation, Memories, Multiple Orgasms, Music, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Rough Sex, Song Lyrics, Steve Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:58:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trophy_Kill1991/pseuds/Trophy_Kill1991
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wants to bring his memories back a little faster, and Bruce has an idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Look at me now I'm a man who won't let himself be

**Author's Note:**

> Heres where I start fucking with you...  
> When I wrote this plot line for this part, I realized that in order to keep this under 40,000 words - which is a ridiculous figure, I know - I needed to break it up into chapters. Keeping in line with the rest of the story thus far, each chapter is a different person's POV.  
> This one is from Bucky.

Several weeks have gone by since Bucky found himself sitting on the floor in his bedroom, cradled in Steve’s strong arms until the early hours of the morning. The nightmare he’d had that night was the worst one Bucky can remember ever having, even before coming to Stark Tower. The thought of being ripped away from Steve again was almost too much to deal with. But thankfully, those are no more than thoughts. Steve is good to him. He gives Bucky all the space he needs, sits up with him on the nights when sleep won’t come. Being around Steve brings out more memories of who he used to be, someone who smiled easily, someone who used to laugh and joke. Steve tells him stories from when they were kids back in Brooklyn, and the memories start to piece together. 

Bucky starts to notice himself feeling different every time Steve sits a little too close, or when he feels Steve’s eyes on him. It’s like a little jolt of electricity that runs through his whole body, making his skin tingle and a shiver run down his spine. It isn’t just when Steve is near, either. Times when he’s gone on an assignment, Bucky feels a dull ache in his chest, like he’s missing something crucial to his existence. But he does his best to ignore it, to bury it away just in case it’s something bad.

Eventually, he gets more comfortable with being around the rest of The Avengers. Steve introduces them in small groups. Of course, he already knew Tony, Natalia and Bruce. Thor stops by from time to time, and Bucky isn’t too sure about him. He’s nice enough, but the way he speaks initially throws Bucky for a loop. Clint is pretty alright, Bucky thinks, despite the fact he uses a bow and arrows. Sam is his favourite so far. He’s nice and one of the few people in the tower that doesn’t look at Bucky like he’s broken. Tony later introduces him to Pepper, a pretty redhead that Stark calls his girlfriend. She’s often present when Tony is doing repairs and upgrades to Bucky’s arm, helping Stark with things that he needs smaller, more delicate hands for. Pepper is sweet, and Bucky likes her a lot too. She tends to over do it when it comes to purchasing clothing and necessities for him, but he isn’t about to turn down a kindness like that, even if he can’t really get used to it. Not that he really has a choice. She usually just drops things off at their door for him, and doesn’t take no for an answer. 

Bucky can never be around them all for too long. He hates crowds these days, feeling like one or all of them are going to suddenly attack him, it puts him on edge too much. But he does his best, for Steve. 

He starts spending more time out of his room, even if it’s just sitting on the couch reading or watching television. And it’s in doing so he picks up on the tension that’s been brewing between Natalia and Steve. She tends to put more distance between them when they’re around other people, and Steve keeps trying to close it. Bucky knows that Steve never got around to dating before the War, he wasn’t exactly the specimen that he is now back then. Dames often over looked Steve for Bucky, and it had always irked him. How could they not see the great guy they were passing up, just to spend one night — even just a few hours — with the legendary Bucky Barnes? Steve used to give him hell about sleeping with so many girls back then, but Bucky just used to brush it off. That much of his past he can remember clear as day.

The irony in Natalia now paying all her attention to Steve, while completely overlooking Bucky was not lost on him. 

But now, Natalia always seems distracted while Steve looks at her like she hangs the moon. Something in Bucky’s chest always tightens when he sees that lovestruck look on Steve’s face when he thinks no one is looking. Bucky doesn’t understand really, why he gets so agitated with it, but yet he still does. He often hears them late in the night, doing what they appear to do best; sex. She’s louder than Bucky remembered from back when they’d had that brief whatever they had, back before The Masters had thrown him back on ice. Steve isn’t overly vocal, which Bucky is thankful for, but the walls of the apartment are shockingly thin, and Bucky can still pick up the soft moans and sighs that escape his friend. 

Most nights, Bucky is able to turn himself over on his bed and bury his head in a stack of pillows to drown out the noise. Most nights, he can ignore the tightness in his throat and the weight pressing down on his chest.    

Sam is adamant that he develop a healthy fitness routine, because it was likely going to help him focus better, which could help with the holes in his memories. Bucky isn’t about to disagree, knowing that he’s gone too long without conditioning. Even with whatever bastardized super-soldier serum than runs through his veins, Bucky still feels the need to do something to keep himself in shape. So he allows Sam and Steve to create a weekly routine for Bucky to follow. He’s thankful for it, and the way that they seem to know how he thrives better with a set routine than when left on his own. Routine was something he’d grown used to with Hydra and The Masters controlling him, so to function without one was difficult. He felt too free.

Every morning after Sam and Steve get back from their run around the city, the two drag Bucky down to the gym. He’s still not overly comfortable with leaving the tower without due cause. Despite knowing that Hydra are gone, and Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D were holding off on hunting him down for now, Bucky still didn’t like the thought of being thrust into the public like that. He still doesn’t fully trust himself, especially not while he still has so many gaps in his mind he needs to fill. Certain things still trigger flashbacks too: The backfire of a car, the brush of someone’s shoulder against his in the street. It’s a completely different world than the one he knew, and that fact alone still scares him. Anyone could be out to get him. From the kind looking young man who serves him and Steve at Starbucks sometimes, to the stern businesswomen who pass by in the streets with cellphones plastered to their ears. Anybody could be a rogue agent from Hydra, just waiting to drag him kicking and screaming back to an underground cell. So they keep it inside.

It’s not much past six-am when Sam raps on his door, hollering at him that it’s time to go. Little did Sam know, Bucky hadn’t slept that night for the third in a row. So he takes his time getting dressed and leaves the room to follow the other man down to the gym. He changes in the locker room; a borrowed pair of sweats from Steve that are only slightly too big, a black tank that fits close to his frame and leaves his metal arm completely exposed, and a new pair of sneakers. He’d found them sitting on his bed several days before, a tag attached to the box with ‘Welcome back, Sargent!’ written on it in the curly handwriting he’s come to learn belongs to Pepper.Sam starts him on the treadmill this morning, setting his pace a leisurely jog. “Talk to me, soldier.” Sam says, leaning on the treadmills control panel. “I see that distracted look.”

“Just feeling off.” Bucky says, nodding towards to controls, telling Sam to crank the pace up. 

“Off, how?” Sam asks, doing as Bucky asks, pushing the pace to a light run. Sam knows how to talk to someone who’s been through hell and back, Bucky thinks. He’s never patronizing, never pushes too hard. He just throws out feelers and whatever Bucky feels like sharing, Sam listens to and does his best to give advice on.

Bucky shrugs, moving his feet faster to keep up with the track under him. “Dunno how to explain it.” Bucky replies. “Heard Natalia and Steve arguing again the other night. Kinda pissed me off.” 

Sam nods. “Pissed you off in what way?” 

“I don’t like it when they argue.” He replies. “Makes me uneasy.” 

Sam shrugs. “I can see that. Seeing friends fighting is never easy. Especially if you get caught in the middle of it.” He pushes the incline of the treadmill up, making Bucky have to work harder to keep his pace up. “Has anything new come back to you lately? Haven’t seen you moving your files around much.”

Bucky shakes his head, and feels a small bead of sweat run down his neck. “Nothing really. Bits and pieces as always.” He runs his right hand through his hair to push it off his face as he keeps running. “Just wish I could get it back quicker. I see the way Steve looks at me sometimes when he brings up something that I should remember and don’t. That pisses me off too.” 

“Try talking to Banner about it later when you go in to see him.” Sam offers. “He might have some kind of idea on what you can do to help your memory along.” He cranks the speed of the track up a little more, making Bucky huff with the exertion. 

The rest of the hour and a half session with Sam consists of weight training, some more cardio, and a couple minutes of sparing with a punching bag. Bucky leaves the gym feeling as refreshed as he does worn out. He heads back to the apartment to shower and change before his scheduled meeting with Bruce. It’s as he’s heading for the bathroom that Steve exits, a pair of light jeans slung around his hips, no shirt, and a towel in his hand scrubbing at his neatly cropped blond hair. The first thing Bucky notices isn’t the way those jeans ride low enough to expose the way his entire abdomen is sculpted like a statue of a Greek god. It’s the tattoo that covers the entire left side of Steve’s chest. His eyes zone in on it, looking over the words, the picture, the entire subject. 

He remembers seeing  a peek of it the night he’d broken into Steve’s old place, but he’d never seen the full thing. He forgot it even existed. Bucky sees his own name etched into one of the dog tags, right over the place where Steve’s heart sits beneath his ribcage. And those damn words, the ones that had tormented him for weeks before finding Steve. _I’m with you, ‘till the end of the line_. Bucky can’t help but stare. 

Steve stops in his tracks and Bucky can see him flush a little already. “If I’d known you were still alive, I never would have…” Steve starts, draping the towel in his hands around his neck, the ends of it hiding the tattoo from view. 

“It’s…” Bucky starts, swallowing the lump in his throat. “It’s a nice tattoo.” He does his best to put on the smirk he’d used to use to when making a joke. “Never would have expected you to be the tattoo type.”

Steve laughs a little and shrugs. “Me neither.” He replies, before ducking into his room.

Bucky makes his way into the bathroom in a daze. Steve had cared enough about him all those years to ink Bucky’s name on his body permanently. The thought sends a pleasant chill through him as he turns the shower on and slides inside the glass enclosure. 

Something else he had to get used to; stand-alone showers. The little glass boxes gave him an initial fright when moving into Stark Tower, and he’d had quite the panic attack. They reminded him a little too much of the cryostasis chambers that Hydra kept him in between missions. He only ever remembered bathtubs from back when he and Steve were kids, and after that, group shower rooms — like the ones in the gym — in Hydra’s facility. It had taken a few days before he convinced himself that this thing wasn’t what it looked like, that it was just a shower. 

By the time he’s cleaned all the sweat from his skin and scrubbed his still too-long hair clean, Steve’s already left the apartment. Bucky knows that he’s getting ready for some new assignment across the country, and that he’ll be leaving for a few weeks. He hates it when Steve goes, but Bucky knows that there isn’t anything he can do about it. Steve is a hero, and he’s got to do what heroes do. He sighs and digs through the drawers of clothing that Pepper and Natalia have purchased for him. Bucky settles on a pair of soft, dark blue jeans that fit him perfectly, a dark navy blue t-shirt and a high-end, designer grey knit sweater made from a soft, warm wool. It fits around his body perfectly, and makes him look like he almost belongs in this decade. He ties his hair at the back of his neck in a low knot to keep the still damp strands off his face and pads through the apartment in bare feet to get something to eat. 

“Better.” He replies, closing the book he’d been reading. He sits silently as Bruce goes over the usual tests. Blood pressure, reflexes, blood work. “Listen, Bruce. Is there anything you could maybe do to…” He hesitates. “Do to maybe help me remember?”

The doctor sits back and watches him carefully. “Is something wrong?” He asks.

“No.” Bucky replies, pulling the sleeve of his sweater back down over his right arm where Bruce had finished drawing a few blood samples. “I just can’t get anything back all at once. It’s still all fragmented.” 

Bruce is silent for a minute as he considers his statement. “I have been thinking about it lately.” He admits. “And there are several avenues we could look into exploring.” Bucky look at him hopefully, waiting for Bruce to explain. “Well, there’s Electroshock therapy —“

“NO!” Bucky all but shouts. Just the mention of electroshock sends the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end. Thats how Hydra had gotten him like this in the first place. He can feel the cold metal braces clamping around his arms and chest, taste the dirty bite plate that Rumlow had put between his teeth, feel the burning in his brain when the machine started up. “No no no…” He feels panicked for the first time in weeks, breathing faster and harder. 

“I know, James. It’s all right. We aren’t going to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.” Bruce is saying, placing a strong hand over Bucky’s right. Bucky takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut to try and rid the memories from his mind. “I know that Hydra used that technique on you, as well as my second option. We could have given you a drug that induces hallucinations, while leading your mind with stimuli to potentially help you relive old memories.” Bucky shakes his head, his jaw knotting together tightly as he looks at Bruce with scared eyes. “I read your file, and I know thats how they brainwashed you. It’s ok, James. Take a deep breath.” 

Bucky does, inhaling deeply through his nose, breathing out through his mouth as a shiver runs through him. He feels himself calm down, relaxes a little more. Bruce nods slowly when Bucky swallows, silently telling him that it’s all ok, that he’s safe here. “So,” Bucky says after a few minutes. “Those are my only options, then? Other than just letting it all come back on its own?”

Bruce shakes his head. “No,” Bruce says lightly, shaking his head. “I do know a psychologist who specializes in hypnosis.”

Bucky can’t fight the snort that leaves him as Bruce says the word. “Hypnosis?” He laughs. “What’s that going to do? Make me strut around the room like a chicken? Because that’d REALLY do me good.”

The doctor purses his lips for a second and fixes him with a stare. “Actually, it’s been proven to help rape and attack victims recall details of their traumas that they’ve buried out of self preservation. I’m thinking that if done properly, it can help you dig up those missing pieces of your life.”

He mulls it over in his head for a minute. There was no machines or drugs involved. No sick experiments. Nothing he could think of that could be potentially harmful. “And you’re sure it’ll work?” He asks, his tone skeptical. 

“Not entirely, no. But if we don’t try, we’ll never know.” Bruce says as he packs up his things. “So, is that something you’d be willing to try?” 

Bucky shrugs. “Sure. I think it’s a total load of bullshit, but why the hell not?”

Bruce node then and hefts his bag onto his shoulder. “Great. I’ll get in touch with Dr. King and arrange a session.” He heads for the door and stops, before turning around. “Don’t worry, James. You’ll get it back.” He gives Bucky a warm smile before leaving the apartment to go about his other business. 

He spends the rest of the day alone in the tower, sorting through the same stacks of files again. As always, nothing new comes back and the files stay in their respective piles. He sighs and flops down on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He hates this restless feeling he gets when he’s alone sometimes, like he can’t sit still too long, like he has to be doing something all the time. Bucky can’t really remember the hobbies he used to have, aside from reading. And he’d done enough of that today already. 

Steve mentioned he used to be a good artist back when they were kids, but Bucky doesn’t believe him. Steve is the artist here. He’s seen the pictures Steve painted of each of The Howling Commandos. They’d been hanging on the wall of Steve’s old apartment. _Wait._ Bucky thinks, sitting up, placing his feet on the floor. He closes his eyes and thinks back to that night. He can see the wall of portraits in his mind’s eye; each of the men that fought beside him and Steve are immortalized in acrylic paint on canvas, encased in expensive looking frames. All but his. Why hadn’t Steve painted his portrait? 

Bucky frowns, feeling a little dejected and not knowing why. 

He spots Steve’s sketch book sitting on the coffee table and reaches for it before he can stop himself. He knows he probably shouldn’t be going through Steve’ things without his permission, but hey, it was just sitting there in the open…

The first sketch he comes to is a familiar room, the kitchen of their old apartment, as seen from the shabby little couch in the living room. Threadbare looking curtains are hung over a small window, the sunlight is filtering in such a way that makes it look inviting. There’s a small, scuffed table and two worn chair under the window, the counter and kitchen sink behind the left chair, the fridge behind the right. A single coffee cup and ashtray sat on the table, just like there always  used to be. Bucky smiles at that. This is something he remembers, the kitchen in the apartment that was probably too small for two grown men to be living in together. It had always felt like home. Bucky brushes his thumb over the coffee cup, knowing on instinct that it was supposed to be _his_ coffee cup, and _his_ ashtray.

 He turns the page, and is met by a picture he’s probably not supposed to see. It’s of a woman. She’s lying on her side, hair falling over her bare shoulders. Her arm falls across her chest, and rumpled bed sheets drape over her curvaceous hips. It takes a minute before Bucky realizes that the face of the woman is Natalia’s. She looks beautiful, peaceful, her eyes are closed and she appears to have been sleeping. Bucky feels a little twinge of pain in his chest, and he turns the page once more. 

This sketch is quite beautiful. A woman in jeans and cowboy boots, walking with her back to the viewer. She’s got a cowboy’s hat in one hand while the other is running through her hair, which falls over her naked back. Clouds of dust billow around her feet, and in the background is a mountain range and several cactus plants. Down the side of the page, Steve’s writing reads: 

“Hello cowgirl in the sand. 

Is this place at your command? 

Can I stay for a little while? 

Can I see your sweet, sweet smile? 

Old enough now to change you name

When so many love you, is it the same?

It’s the woman in you that makes you wanna play this game” Bucky gets the feeling that this is a more recent one, reflecting the way Steve has been feeling towards Natalia. 

He flips to the next page with a pout and is startled to be met with his own face. He looks like the perfect image of seduction, lower lip caught between slightly uneven teeth, eyes half lidded and dark. His shirt was hanging open, and the edge of his pants is riding low on his hips. His left hand — flesh and bone, not steel — is running through his short, neat hair, the way he’d kept it in the 30’s, before he’d gone off to war. Bucky feels his face get hot as he takes in the image his best friend has drawn of _him_. But not him, all at once. This was the person he’d been before, all blatant sex appeal and flirtatiousness. He swallows thickly and forces himself to turn the page again. 

He spends the next hour looking through Steve’s drawings, amazed with his talent. Steve comes home later than usual that night, looking worn and exhausted. They don’t talk much through dinner, and Steve heads to bed as soon as he’s cleaned up the dishes. Bucky doesn’t sleep much that night, instead he paces the living room floor, wondering whats gotten into him.

It’s several days of the same routine of working out with Steve or Sam, then idly pacing the apartment, trying to piece his mind together before Bruce gets in contact with him, telling Bucky that he’s arranged a meeting with his psychologist friend, Dr. King. Bucky meets them in Bruce’s office in the tower the following morning at oh-nine-hundred sharp, feeling both nervous and skeptical all at the same time. Dr. King is a kind looking woman of maybe fifty, blonde hair tied back off her face in a neat bun at the back of her head. She has a kind smile and a soft voice that instantly makes Bucky feel safe and comfortable. 

“James, I’m going to have Bruce or Sam sit in on your sessions with us, to ensure your safety. Is that alright with you?” She asks, as she sets up a small video camera beside her. 

Bucky nods as he sits down on a comfortable couch. “Yeah, I guess so. Why not Steve? He’d be the best one to restrain me if things go a little…” He searches for the right word. “Haywire?”

Dr. King laughs. “As good an idea as it would be to have another super soldier in the room, his presence might lead your mind in a guided direction. It might actually conjure up the fake memories Hydra implanted in your mind when they gave you your last assignment. So I think it’s best if Steve stays out on this one.” The woman replies. “Now, I want you to lay back and relax. Close your eyes.” He does as she asks, kicking off his sneakers and getting comfortable on the couch, his eyes closing slowly. “Take a deep breath… Thats it. Good. Now another… In and out… Feel your body relax completely.” Her voice is low and soothing, and Bucky feels at ease as he takes long, slow breaths, his hands folded together on his chest. “Now start counting back from ten.” 

“Ten… Nine… Eight” Bucky counts, with every exhaled breath. 

“Open your mind… Explore your thoughts…” Dr. King’s voice says. 

Behind Bucky’s eyes colours start to dance, swirling and twisting. “Seven… Six… Five” He counts sleepily. He doesn’t remember ever being so relaxed. 

“Listen to my voice, James. Open yourself up. What do you see?”

The colours start to form objects, nothing he recognizes yet. “Four… Three… Two…” He says, as the shapes start to form more clearly. An alleyway back in old New York. “One.” He finishes, as the vision clears. 

_I’m back in Brooklyn. I’m eight years old, and running an errand for Ma. She sent me to the bodega on the corner to get… Something. Theres a group of kids in the alley behind the bodega, bigger than me, all circled around something. I can hear them laughing, but not all of them are laughing. There’s a smaller, sound, like a groan coming from the middle of their circle. I go over to see what’s happening and thats when I see him huddled on the ground, his lip’s bloody and his knees are skinned._

“Who is it?” 

_Steve. I get the bodega owner and he chases the older kids away and I pick Steve up off the ground. He calls me a jerk, and says he didn’t need my help. I call him a punk, because he damn well did need help. He’s so small, even for eight. He’s scrawny and all angles, like he’s never seen a proper meal in his life. I knew instantly that we were going to be best friends._

The colours swirl again, and the image changes. Bucky feels his lips quirk into a smile. 

_I’m seventeen. Steve’s Ma died not long ago, and I made Steve move in with me. Neither of us have anyone but each other. Apartment is shitty. Too small for the both of us,but it’s all we can afford. We share a room. He’s too small and frail still. He gets a job painting signs for the city when they need someone. I work at the docks, hauling crates on and off boats. Hard work, little money. We scrape by. But I’ve never been happier, and going home to that apartment every night is the best feeling I can remember._

As the memory fades out, and the images blur, Bucky feels a weight on his chest, like something is tugging at his heart. Without realizing it, he moves a hand, his flesh and bone one, to pull at his shirt just over his heart. He swallows and rubs at his chest a little, but the weight persists. 

“You’re doing great James. What do you see now?” Dr. King’s voice is asking at the edge of his subconscious. 

_It’s the winter after we moved in. Our furnace is out for the third time that week, and we don’t have the money to fix it properly. Steve is getting sick. He gets sick every winter, bad lungs the doctors say. He has medicine for it that we keep filled when we have the money, but it ran out a week ago, and he’s having trouble breathing. Steve gets a fever that won’t break, and we have to call a doctor. Doc says that it’s real bad, and he doubts Steve’s going to make it through the winter. I stay home from work, because I don’t want to be gone in case something bad happens. I know I’m gonna lose my job, but I don’t care because this is Steve, and he’s my best friend. He can’t die on me. I don’t sleep for days, sitting beside the bed to keep an eye on him. His fever breaks nearly a week later, and his eyes open for the first time since. I don’t remember ever being so relieved._

The same pulling in his chest catches his attention and he paws at himself while still entranced in his hypnotized state. He groans a little, but Dr. King assures him that he’s fine, and pushes him back into his memories. Bucky watches the colours swirl behind his eyes again. 

_It’s 1942 and I had to enlist in the army. It’s the only way I can keep a roof over Steve’s head, keep him safe. Work is hard to find in the city. Army wages aren’t much, but it’ll be enough. Steve is not happy, and is adamant that he’s going over too. He tries every damn recruiting office, but he’s always rejected. Basic training is a breeze, I make Sergeant almost too quickly. My orders come in the mail and I have to go. Steve is upset, but he keeps it together. I do too, until I’m on the boat that’s going to take me overseas to war. I huddle in my bunk that first night, covers pulled over my face, and I’m crying. Why am I crying? I’m not scared of war. It’s my duty. So why does it hurt?_

The pull in his chest grows stronger and starts to ache. Something is wrong, he doesn’t feel right. He feels hollow, empty. The snap of Dr. King’s fingers brings him from the hypnosis, and Bucky’s eyes flutter open. The clock that sits over the door reads quarter-to-four in the afternoon. Bucky sits up from the couch and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his right hand, then drags it through his hair. His cheeks are damp, and his eyes feel sticky. He blinks several times to clear his vision, and looks up at Bruce and Dr. King, who are both looking at him with sad smiles. "I didn't think I'd be out that long." He comments, to no one in particular.

Bruce shrugs. "You were quiet for a long time before you finally started to come to things. Even with Dr. King and I trying to lead you." He explains

“How’d I do though?” He asks them.

“Excellent James. Really, really great.” Dr. King is saying, as she pops the disc out of the camera. She labels it with a marker as ‘Session 1’ and passes it to him in a clear case. “Just in case you feel like watching the session.” She explains. 

Bucky already knows what he remembered, but he takes the disc anyway. “So what now? All that came back was shit from the 30’s and 40’s. That’s not really helping me now, is it?” He asks. 

Bruce shakes his head. “It is. It’s filling in the early gaps. The more from the past you recall, the more that things that happened later become clear. You can start to understand motives that drove you to do things, why your thought processes lead you places.” He explains. “But for now, go and get some rest. We’ll meet here next week for your next session.” 

He nods slowly, still feeling that same heaviness in his chest. He gets to his feet, and shakes hands with Dr. King before leaving Bruce’s office for his and Steve’s floor. The elevator doors haven’t even opened when he can hear Steve and Natalia bickering through the steel. He can’t make out the words, but their voices are raised, and both seem displeased. As he enters the room, they immediately clam up and simultaneously look over at him. He gives them both a half-assed smile and heads into his room to deposit the disc on his dresser.

Steve has dinner cooked that evening. It’s one more thing Bucky has come to enjoy about living with Steve. The man is a brilliant chef. The steak set in front of him is cooked to perfection; still rather red in the centre, slightly bloody, the way he liked it. Potatoes mashed with butter and garlic and green onions, grilled asparagus and roasted carrots join the meat, and Bucky feels like a king. Natalia pushes her food around her plate, and Steve eyes her quietly as he eats. 

“How was your meeting with Bruce?” Steve asks him after what feels like an hour of silence. 

Bucky shrugs. “Fine.” He replies, taking another bite. “Remembered the day we met. And that fucking shitty apartment we lived in.” He tells Steve. 

A smile ghosts across Steve’s lips, and Bucky’s heart feels like its going to burst for some reason. “Yeah, it wasn’t the best. But we survived.” He chuckles before he gets up from the table to clear the dishes. 

He leaves Steve and Natalia in peace, and retires to his own room for the night. He doesn’t sleep, he can’t. His mind is racing at a thousand miles an hour. Why had his heart hurt so much while he was under the hypnosis? Was that normal? And why did he still feel it now? Why did he get this flutter in his chest when Steve smiled at him like that? He lays on his back on his bed, clothed in nothing but pyjama pants, staring at the ceiling once more as he tries to figure it all out. 

The clock beside his bed is going for half-past-midnight when he hears the tell-tale signs of Steve and Natalia making up for their fighting earlier. Murmured words are lost through the wall, but he can hear the way she moans and sighs Steve’s name, the way Steve talks to her in a low, smooth voice. Bucky turns onto his side and covers his head with his pillow. He doesn’t want to hear this. But things on the other side of the wall are getting heated, and Natalia isn’t exactly quiet about it. Bucky feels the way his heart contracts in his chest, and he curls into a ball, trying to distract himself from listening to the way Steve’s strangled voice groans out as he finishes.

Bucky stays silent for a while, head still buried under his pillow. He still can’t sleep. His throat feels tight and dry, he needs water. Outside his door, he hears the soft steps he’s come to associate with Natalia slipping from the apartment, the slide of the heavy elevator doors, and then silence. He waits another minute or two before getting up. As he digs around his dresser for a shirt, he hears Steve pad down the hallway. Bucky quirks an eyebrow. Steve almost never gets up in the middle of the night like that. He tugs a plain white tee over his head and heads into the kitchen. 

Steve looks a mess, sitting at the table in a pair of red plaid pyjama pants, his head in his hands. His hair is sticking up at all kinds of strange angles, and a series of red scratches run down his bare back from neck to tailbone. “Dame done a number on you, eh Stevie?” Bucky says, mimicking his old self from the fragmented memories he’s had, while reaching into a cabinet for a glass. He fills it with water and ice from the dispenser on the fridge that still boggles his mind, and leans against the counter. 

“Could say that, yeah.” Steve replies, dragging his hand through his hair. 

Bucky can read the set of Steve’s shoulders even back on. Something is weighing on him. “You okay?” Steve just shrugs. “You can talk to me, you know.” Bucky urges. “I know I have my own shit going on, but I’m still your friend.”

Steve sighs. “Ever been seeing a girl for a while, but still not know where you are?” He says, as Bucky sits down across the table from him. Bucky nods. Sure he has, then again, back when they were kids, it was usually his fault and the girls were the ones left wondering. Steve doesn’t meet his eyes, just picks at the edge of a placemat that sits on the table. “It’s been nearly a year, and I have no clue about what Natasha and I are. Is she my girlfriend? Are we — what did Tony call it the other day — Friends with benefits?” He huffs. 

“Well, what do you want? Where do you see you guys in two years, say?” Bucky asks, trying to sound as wise and world wary as possible.

He watches as Steve’s expression changes from lost and forlorn to peaceful and almost happy. “Hypothetically,” Steve starts. “I’d like to settle down. You know me, Buck. I’ve never been the type to have a new girl every week. And Natasha’s great, you know? She understands the kind of work I do, because she’s in it too. I don’t have to try and explain why sometimes I have to get up on a moments notice to go and save the damn world. I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not.” 

Bucky sits down across the table from Steve, listening to every word he says. He feels something in his chest contract, and the same weight he felt in the hypnosis session presses down on him. But this time, it feels stronger, more prevalent. He winces, and Steve’s expression falters. Bucky waves his left hand, telling Steve to go on, rubbing at his chest with his right.

“Two years time? I’d like to be engaged. I’d like to be able to tell the whole world that Natasha Romanov, the infamous Black Widow, is going to be my wife.” He sighs, the corners of his mouth dropping again. “Realistically though, that’d never happen.”

“Have you even asked her where you are?” Bucky asks, trying to keep his tone neutral. 

Steve shakes his head. “No. I don’t even know how I’d go about doing that.”

Bucky shrugs. “Just ask her.”

He watches Steve get up from his seat. “I guess you’re right.” Steve says, running a hand through his hair as he yawns. “I just can’t get used to sleeping alone.”

Bucky arches an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I guess you don’t remember back that far yet.” Steve says with a small, sad smile. “For as long as we lived in that apartment, we only had the one bed. I guess I got used to someone else’s presence on the other side of the mattress, even if it wasn’t… Well, not the same way as it is with Natasha. Then when we were overseas, there was at least ten of us in a room in the barracks at any given time. I never really spent much time alone until I woke up here.” He explains. 

Bucky can see the set of his shoulders droop a little more, and feels that weight in his chest get just a little heavier. “But let me guess, she’s not too keen on the idea?”

Steve shakes his head. “Not really. It’s strange thought, she never really seemed to mind until recently.”

“Until I moved in.”

“Bucky, no. It’s not that.” Steve assures him, meeting his eyes for the first time. “I don’t know what it is, and that’s whats driving me crazy. I don’t know if it’s something I did, if maybe I came on a little too strong? She just keeps saying that she can’t sleep with someone else in her bed, that it makes her restless. Like I said, it never bothered her before, so I don’t know why it would now.” He huffs and shakes his head, before getting up from the table. “Anyway, try and get some sleep tonight, ok? I’m just down the hall if you need anything.” Steve gives him a warm smile before heading back down the hall to his room, only partially closing his door. Bucky knows it’s so Steve can keep a better ear out, just in case something happens and Bucky needs him.

It always amazes Bucky how selfless Steve can be. Even when he’s got his own personal issues going on, Steve still goes out of his way to make sure that he’s alright. He feels lucky that he has someone like that in his life now. For so long, no one really cared about anything other than his ability to kill. But now, someone actually gave a damn about how he felt, how he was doing. It was the first time in a long time that he was actually allowed to have feelings, was allowed to have an opinion on things. And if it hadn’t been for Steve, the one person who refused to give up on him, even when he spent day after day silent, he never would have gotten to the point he reached now. Bucky smiles a little, eyes watching Steve’s door in the darkened hallway.

He spends most of what remains of the night tossing and turning in his bed, and when that does nothing, he paces the floor of the hallway. He knows he keeps Steve awake when he does this, not hearing the soft snoring that usually comes from the open door, but he can’t help it. He’s too busy wondering why he keeps feeling so hollow.

As always, he meets with Sam in the gym the following morning when Steve returns home from their run. Sam puts him on the treadmill again, starting him off at the same leisurely jog. “How’s the hypnosis?” Sam asks, leaning against the handlebar on Bucky’s left side. 

“Better than nothing.” Bucky replies. 

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Nothing came back?”

Bucky shakes his head and pushes the button on the treadmills control panel that increases his speed. “Just stuff from before the war. Left me feeling weird though.” He says, eyes staring out the huge plate glass window that sits in front of the line of treadmills in Stark’s gym. 

“Well, what were you thinking about?” Sam asks. 

“How I met Steve, the apartment we used to live in. That one time Steve almost died because he got pneumonia, and the doctor said his lungs couldn’t handle it. Enlisting in the military. Leaving Steve behind.” Bucky tells him.

Sam nods slowly. “And what did this weird feeling feel like, exactly?” He asks. 

Bucky thinks, trying to find a way to describe it. “Like someone was reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart in their fist.” He says after a minute. Sam pushes his pace up a little more, increases the incline on the treadmill. “And after, when I was back at the apartment talking to Steve about him and Natalia, I dunno. I got this hollow feeling. I don’t know what to make of it.”

He takes a glance at Sam, who’s not saying anything, just smirking. Theres a look in his eyes that tells Bucky he knows something that Bucky doesn’t. Bucky fixes him with a blank stare as he keeps running, and Sam just chuckles to himself. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll go away.”

Bucky hits the cool-down button and his pace begins to slow. “Doesn’t really help right now, does it?” He mutters, while the track under his feet slows to a stop. Sam passes him a bottle of water and leads him over to another area of the gym, where several punching bags hang. He pulls a pair of fingerless leather gloves from his pocket and pulls them on while Sam takes his place behind the bag, holding it still. “What bugs me here,” Bucky is saying as he starts throwing a few punches. “Is that I don’t remember what anything feels like. I don’t remember what happy really feel like. I don’t remember what sad feels like. All I know is empty and blank.” He jabs at the bag several more times, eyebrow furrowing. “It’s frustrating.”

Sam nods from behind the punching bag. “I understand. But don’t focus too much on the little things like that. When you figure it out, you’ll understand what’s going on in your head better. Me telling you what you feel isn’t going to do you any good.” Annoyed, Bucky throws a harder punch with his left, sending the bag back into Sam’s chest. The other man groans out an ‘oomph!’ as he catches the bag, and Bucky fixes him with a stare. “Sorry pops, but I ain’t tellin’ you shit! You gotta figure out some things for yourself!” He laughs. Bucky just groans and continues to take his frustration out on the punching bag.

The days blend one into the other. He doesn’t sleep much still, and his body does not thank him for it. But when he does, he’s out for hours out of pure exhaustion. Sometimes he’ll pass out on the couch, and come to in his bed, not knowing how he got there. He assumes that Steve somehow manages to get him up from the couch, unless he’s started sleepwalking. He spends some time with Clint and Natalia in the shooting range, under strict supervision, which he can understand. At first, he's confused as to why the archer would have any use for a shooting range, but soon realizes that Stark has a special area allocated just for Clint. It's got targets set up up high on rafters, and along the walls, each one padded to adsorb the arrows. _Tony really thinks of everything, doesn't he?_ Bucky thinks as he looks around the massive range. He hasn’t lost his expert marksmanship in the months spent without a weapon in his hands, something he’s proud of. Bucky even manages to impress Clint with his ability. He chalks it up to the years spent as a sniper, always watching Steve’s six while they were in the field. 

It's then, on the range with Clint and Natalia that be begins to notice things. Things he doesn't like. Clint is almost too close to Natalia sometimes, leaning into her, touching her in what could be considered an inappropriate way to touch someone who was just a friend. Did Clint not know that Natalia was seeing Steve? Was he not aware that Steve was head over heels for this woman? He watched the way Clint's hand would graze the small of her back as she walked past him, on her way to store her weapons. He saw the way Natalia looked at Clint, and it was not at all the distant look she often gave Steve. No, this was a very different look, and Bucky did not like it. Was she playing with Steve? What was her angle here? He huffs to himself, and keeps shooting at the targets that Jarvis puts up for him.

Steve takes him out from time to time, shows him around the city. He doesn’t much like being out in public still, but he gets more and more used to it each time they venture out. Bucky develops a taste for coffee, and he, Steve and Natalia often spend their afternoons at the Starbucks around the corner. A pretty girl that works there flirts shamelessly with Steve, and Bucky is always amused by that. “Look at me, I’m invisible!” He laughs one day, and the pretty girl passes Steve his coffee, her number scrawled on the bottom of the cup. “I’m you!”

Steve’s face tightens then, as they sit. Bucky watches as something in his eyes darkens over before he forces a smile. But it falters and fades again. “You could never be invisible, Buck.” Steve says softly, like he hardly meant to see it.

Seeing that pained look on Steve’s face sends his heart plummeting through his body and through the floor. Whatever he’d said had struck a sore nerve with Steve, and Bucky didn’t like it. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Bucky asks, trying to meet Steve’s eyes. 

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Steve feints a smile again and they drink their coffee in silence. 

More often than not, when Steve is in a particularly bad mood — which happens more often than Bucky remembered, and he blames it on Natalia — Steve drags him down to the gym so they can spar hand to hand. Both of them are too strong to properly spar with the others, aside from Thor, who’s almost never around. Tony only plays along when he’s wearing his suit, which Bucky considers cheating. Tony says that Bucky’s arm could be considered a cheat too, but he shrugs it off. Steve is able to give Bucky a good working over most times they spar, which is almost refreshing. 

The next session with Dr. King creeps up on him, and he finds him self in Bruce’s office the week after the first one took place. As he’d done the last time, Bucky lays back on the couch and gets comfortable, relaxes, counts back from ten, and finds himself deep within the confines of his own mind.

“Talk to me James. What do you see?” Says the soothing voice of Dr. King. 

_It’s cold. It’s always cold. I can’t stop shivering. My left side feels heavy, and I remember my arm. The Masters brief me on my next mission and ready me to leave. I kill so many people with one flip of a switch… Train station bombing. Back on ice after. Next time they need me it’s to assassinate someone who’s name I can’t remember now. Shot him from a third floor window across the street from the cafe he was going into. Back on ice again after. Sometimes I start to think things for myself, the Masters don’t like it._

The vision blurs for a second before coming clear, and Bucky starts to feel afraid. “Where are you now?” Dr. King asks gently. 

_A bedroom. Pretty girl still sprawled out on the bed, red hair across the pillow. She looks up at me with a soft look I haven’t seen in I don’t know how long. It’s Natalia. She smiles, asks where I’m going. She’s speaking Russian. I tell her I have to go before someone catches on. We’d both be killed if we were found out. But she’s so convincing. I don’t want to leave. I want to crawl back into her bed where it’s warm. I’m always so cold. But Natalia is warm all over, puts the heat back in my blood. She pulls me back to bed, her lips are on mine, her hands are all over me._

The memory fades away before Bucky can see too much else, but he gets the drift. He’d already figured that out a while ago, after he’d seen Natalia. Theres a pressure in his chest again, the same tug that he’s come to associate with Steve, only not nearly as powerful. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe he feels guilty for not being able to protect her and Steve from the things they’d both had to face in life after Hydra had put him on ice.

“You’re doing great, James.” Dr. King tells him. “Can you tell me anything else? What else can you remember?

_Hydra lab. Strapped down to the table while they fit the new arm in place. Blinding pain, no anaesthetic. I pass out. Mission from the next day is a failure. The Masters have me beaten, and I take it because I’m a failure. Wooden batons, heavy boots, fists, tazers. I feel it all. Bones are broken, blood everywhere. Oh god, it hurts so bad. Why won’t they stop? Then they drag me to the chair. My arms are clamped down, theres a device around my head. Someone puts something in my mouth, and… pain. So much pain. I can’t stop from screaming. It hurts. It hurts it hurts, oh fuck, it hurts. Then everything is blank._

He wakes with a start, gasping for breath at the snap of the Doctor’s fingers. Bruce is kneeling behind the arm of the couch, where Bucky’s head rests. Bucky is coated in sweat, his face streaked with tears. He wipes his face in the bottom of his shirt as Dr. King takes the disc from the video camera. Bucky looks to the clock and it only reads two-thirty. “Why’d you pull me out?” He asks, his voice sounding fragile.

Dr. King glances up as she makes a few notes on a pad of paper in her file. “You were reliving some particularly nasty memories, James. If we left you too long, and too much of the bad came back too fast, we risked having you slip into another catatonic episode.” She explains, passing him the disc of the session. 

Bucky drags a hand through his hair, feeling more worn out than he can remember feeling in a long time. “Oh.” He replies.

“We’ll meet again next week, James. Go and get some rest.” She smiles warmly, and Bucky takes her advice.

This time when he reaches the apartment floor, Steve and Natalia are in an all out shouting match. Their voices are loud enough for him to hear what they’re saying, and Bucky isn’t surprised. 

“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know!” Steve shouts. “It isn’t difficult to figure it out!”

“I mean, that I don’t fucking know, ok!? I don’t!” Natalia shouts back. 

"That makes no sense! You either want to be with me, or you don’t. There isn’t exactly a grey area here, Nat.”

She growls, and the elevator doors open in time for Bucky to see her drag a hand through her hair. They’re on opposite sides of the living room. Steve is visibly upset, his big blue eyes shimmering wetly in the apartment lights. Natalia looks stressed, pacing the same small section of flooring with one hand on her hip, the other in her hair. Neither even notice Bucky as he enters the room. 

“Not for you, maybe.” She snaps. 

“Exactly.” Steve said bluntly. “I know what I want, and that’s you. So either we’re —“ He cuts himself off when his eyes fall on Bucky, and both of them fall silent. Natalia takes the opportunity to bolt, and grabs her jacket from the couch. “Natasha, wait!” Steve calls, but it’s too late, the elevator doors are closing behind her and she’s gone.

Steve is a wreck, and Bucky can tell. He wants to say something, he wants to do something to take the pain off his friend’s face. But before the chance is given, Steve stalks off down the hall and slams his bedroom door, and Bucky is left alone in the living room in silence. He sighs and walks in the direction Steve went and goes to knock on the door, but stops. 

He knows Steve better than he thought. He can hear the way Steve sniffs through the door, clearing his throat and breathing heavily. Bucky remembers those sounds. He remembers hearing them as the apartment door closed, the morning that he shipped out back in 1942. Steve was always too proud to let people see him cry, and tried his best not to make a sound to draw attention to the fact he was upset. Bucky bites down on his lip and squeezes his eyes shut, feeling his heart all but rip itself apart. He knows that Steve wants to be left alone, so he gives the door one last long look before heading into his own room.


	2. I'm all wrapped up in you... I'm all wrapped up in him too.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are you doing here?” Steve asks, his voice still rough from the tears, and probably a little too cold to be speaking to the woman he presumes he’s in love with.
> 
> She doesn’t say a word, just shucks her coat and drops it on the floor, kicks off her boots and strides slowly over to the bed where Steve sits. Her hands are cold as they cup his jaw, tipping his face up so she can look him in the eyes, but Steve doesn’t mind. Natasha rakes one hand through his hair, the other’s thumb brushing over his cheekbone, wiping away left over dampness. “Lets not talk.” She says lowly, her green eyes already hazy with lust. “Let me show you what I want right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally, just a smutty, smutty filler chapter. Needed to break up the feels some.  
> There's some plot, but... Not really.  
> Have fun.

They had been enjoying a quiet afternoon. Steve, sketching away at the kitchen table as Natasha reads up on a few key files for her next mission. He couldn’t resist drawing the way she looked, head propped in her hand as she stared blankly at the open file on the table. She was adorable. Steve knew now, after his talk with Bucky several days ago, that he wanted something more permanent with her. Sure, what they had was great, but like he’d told Bucky, he wanted to settle down. Maybe even get married someday. So Steve sighs. _Here goes nothing._ He thinks to himself as he lays his pencil down. “Can I ask you something?” Steve starts. 

Natasha looks up from her file and smiles a little bit. “Sure thing.” She says, flipping the folder shut. 

He looks around the room, trying to piece the words together. “Look, we’ve been doing this for what…Almost a year?” Natasha nods, her smile starting to fade. “But what is it? What are we?”

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes as she exhales. “I knew this was coming sooner rather than later; we’re exactly what we appear to be.”

“Which is?” He asks. 

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.” Steve finishes, somewhat hurt by her unwillingness to answer him straight. 

Natasha looks over at him. “Why?” She asks. 

Steve huffs out a sigh and leans back in his chair, arms folded over his chest. “Because I’m not the kind of person who likes playing games when it comes to the people I love.”

“Whoa.” Natasha says, stopping him from saying anymore. “You didn’t just use that word here.”

“Sure I did.” He shoots back. “I’ve been sleeping with you for this long; we’ve gone on several proper dates. You basically lived here for the entire first month I move in while Bucky was still in the medical ward. Did you expect me not to form some kind of attachment to you?”

The woman looks put off. She fidgets in her chair, her eyes looking everywhere but Steve. “Yeah, but really? You can’t say something like that.” 

“Why the hell not?” Steve asks, getting a little defensive. 

“Because we aren’t together!” Natasha almost snaps. 

Steve feels a pang of hurt stab through his heart at her words, and falters a little. “No, but we could be.” He replies, doing his best to keep calm. “I care about you Nat, a lot. And yes, I might even go so far as to say that I love you. And that isn’t going to change, at least not any time soon. And frankly, there isn’t really anyone else I’d rather be with.” Her face contorts as she listens to him speak, but says nothing of her own. “So tell me, what do you want from me here? Because I just laid it all out in black and white for you, and the least you can do is give me some kind of honest answer.”

Natasha gets up from the table and moves into the living room, her arms folded over her chest. She looks out the big window, avoiding answering the question. Steve gets up from the table then too, standing beside the couch with his hands in his pockets, waiting. “I don’t know.” Natasha’s voice replies, softly. 

“You don’t know?” Steve replies, laughing in disbelief. 

“No, Steve, I don’t.” Natasha turns to him, her expression cold and closed off, and that alone is enough to piss Steve off. He’d laid his heart out for her, ripped it from his chest and placed it on the table, and all she had was ‘I don’t know’. No, that was not good enough. Not after all this time.

“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know!?” He asks, his voice rising without him meaning to do so. He was beyond upset, he was long past hurt. Her words had been a bullet through the heart. “It isn’t difficult to figure it out!”

“It means I don’t fucking know, ok!?” Natasha shouts back. “I just don’t.”

Steve throws his hands up, laughing. “That makes no sense! You either want to be with me, or you don’t. There isn’t exactly a grey area here, Nat.” He tells her, raising an eyebrow. He can feel a burning in the back of his eyes and forces it down. His hands plant themselves on his hips as he watches her.

Natasha drags a hang through her hair while she paces the floor in front of the living room window as she lets out a frustrated groan. “Not for you, maybe.” She snaps at him, her green eyes cold.

He returns her glair. “Exactly.” He says, perhaps a little too bluntly. “I know what I want, and that’s you. So either we’re…” He falters with his words as he glances around the room and sees Bucky standing in the doorway, looking a little confused. The time to finish his sentence having passed as Natasha is picking up her coat. “Natasha, wait!” He calls. But she’s gone. She pushes past Bucky and into the elevator, ordering Jarvis to take her to her own floor.

Steve can feel his throat tightening as he stares after her. His breath comes in shaky waves, hitching in the back of his throat. He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, and it’s the last thing he wants right now. So he turns on his heel and marches himself down the hall and into his bedroom, slamming the door a little too hard. Thoughts race through his head as he sinks to the edge of his bed. What had he done? What they had was just fine, why did he need more? Why had he asked her about it? His throat tightens even more, and he tries to clear it, but it won’t loosen up. His eyes burn and his vision is blurry. Steve takes several deep breaths, but he can’t stop the inevitable. 

The first hot tear rolls down his cheek, followed by another, then another. He can’t stop them, so he lets it go. 

He can’t remember a time where a woman had broken him so badly; even Peggy Carter hadn’t left him in tears like this. Then again, he’d ‘died’ before they’d even been able to give it a fair shot. But Natasha, she’d done it, she’d taken him down. He’d let her in; let her see him in a way that no one — other than Bucky — had gotten to know him. He let her see his softer side, the side of him that still remained intact from growing up in a simpler time. He’d tried to be romantic, tried to show her that he’d love her no matter what she may have been. But it didn’t seem to be enough. 

Steve coughs to clear his throat and sniffs, still unable to hold back.

He tries to tell himself that it didn’t mean anything. That the past year was nothing more than casual sex with a friend, but it doesn’t work. His feelings for her run deeper than he’d thought. 

But there was more to it than that, he realizes, as he runs a hand down his face to push some of the tears away. She’d filled a void in him that he thought would never be filled. Before he’d known that Bucky was still alive, he’d been hollow, empty and alone. But then Natasha came along and brought all her light and warmth with her, and did her best to complete the part of Steve that had been broken. It wasn’t an exact fit, because well, no one was ever going to be able to replace Bucky, but she’d done her best and he’d fallen for her like no one else before.

 _Well, not like anyone you’d ever admit to having feelings for, anyway._ A voice in the back of his head scolds. It sounds an awful lot like Bucky, and it pains him. 

Of course, there had been some unresolved feelings for Bucky back before they’d both ‘died’. They were best friends, closer than brothers. Steve had idolized everything that Bucky was, before he’d been injected with the serum, and kept on looking up to him after. Bucky was fearless back then, stood up for Steve when no one else would. Steve had developed something of a crush when they were still just kids, and it had lingered through the war. Steve could never say a word about it, even if he wanted nothing more than to confess those feelings. But things back then had been far less liberal than now. Steve denied it to himself from the get-go, swore high and low that what he felt was nothing at all. But it persisted. Even now, it nagged at him sometimes, though it was easily buried when Natasha was around.

Now, whatever void Bucky had left was Natasha’s to claim. That was, if she wanted it. _And if she didn’t?_ Well, Steve didn’t really know what he’d do. _Keep looking? Live the life of the eternal bachelor?_ He’d have to figure it out.

Daylight fades into darkness, and Steve’s room is bathed in moonlight when he finally regains control of himself. It wasn’t just Natasha that he’d been crying for. He hadn’t allowed himself to fully mourn Bucky’s death back in the war, never really let himself rejoice in the fact that his friend wasn’t really dead after all, just very, very broken. He had never given himself time to grieve for the rest of the Howling Commandos either, his friends and brothers, when he woke up seventy years after the war. He’d bottled everything up, putting on a strong face, the face of Captain America, and pretended that nothing got under his skin like that. But when he finally gave himself a chance to let it all go, it didn’t seem to want to come to an end. He finds himself curled into a ball on his bed, the moon’s soft silvery glow falling across his pillow when he opens his eyes. 

It’s not overly late, only ten o’clock or so, but he doesn’t hear Bucky wandering about the apartment, looking in vain for something that needs to be done. He doesn’t even hear the television in the living room. _Perhaps he finally passed out again._ Steve thinks, as he sits up, feet flat on the floor. 

Bucky hadn’t been sleeping well the past few months. Some weeks were better than others, but more often than not Bucky would stay awake for days on end until his body literally gives out and he collapses in a heap on the couch. Steve knows that Bucky still has the nightmares; hell, so does he. Steve understands his friend’s unwillingness to go to sleep, were Steve in his position, he wouldn’t want to relive the horrors that Hydra put him through every night. So he does his best to sit up with Bucky and keep him company when Natasha is on missions with Clint, talking to him about the old times. Sometimes, it sparks a new memory for Bucky, and he gets happier than a kid on Christmas. Other times, their conversations leave Bucky frustrated because he can’t remember and Steve a little hurt because of it. 

Tonight though, Bucky isn’t pacing the hallways, isn’t humming along to music in his bedroom on the other side of the wall. It’s a good sign and Steve feels a little better for it. 

He’s about to get up when his bedroom door opens and Natasha slips in quietly. “What are you doing here?” Steve asks, his voice still rough from the tears, and probably a little too cold to be speaking to the woman he presumes himself to be in love with.

She doesn’t say a word, just shucks her coat and drops it on the floor, kicks off her boots and strides slowly over to the bed where Steve sits. Her hands are cold as they cup his jaw, tipping his face up so she can look him in the eyes, but Steve doesn’t mind. Natasha rakes one hand through his hair, the others thumb brushing over his cheekbone, wiping away left over dampness. “Let’s not talk.” She says lowly, her green eyes already hazy with lust. “Let me show you what I want right now.”

With that, Natasha straddles his thighs, her knees on the bed as she sits on his lap, and hauls him in for a rough kiss that sends Steve’s head spinning. He knows what she wants and initially he doesn’t feel in the mood. But the way her hips grind against his in that slow, sensual way instantly changes his mind, and he kisses her back. This is the last thing they should be doing, if she can’t tell him where they stand, they sure as hell shouldn’t be having sex right now. But her hands are in his hair, and her tongue slides past his lips and into his mouth. She tastes like Vodka — the expensive Russian kind that he knows she keeps a stash of in her quarters. Steve feels almost like this is taking advantage of her, but hey, she started it and if this made him fall just that much more in love with her, well, it wasn’t his fault.

His hands are all over her, pulling her top off and dropping it aside. Hers repeat the action, tossing his shirt over her shoulder before leaning down to attack his neck with kisses and bites. Steve can’t even begin to fight off the soft sigh that leaves him. Natasha’s nails bit into his shoulder blades and slide down his back, making him hiss with the slight burn of it. Steve knows what she wants when she gets like this, so he’ll willingly provide. He plants his hands on her hips and tosses her off him, so she flops onto the mattress, her head on the pillows. Natasha grins deviously, already toeing out of her socks. “C’mon, Cap.” She purrs. “Whataya waitn’ for?” Steve can’t hold back the equally dark smirk that graces his mouth as he shifts himself onto the bed, his body above hers. He knows what she likes when she’s half-drunk like this; drunk enough that she doesn’t think twice, but not so much so that she’s out of her mind. He discovered early on that she wasn’t as delicate as some of his other companions had been. That Steve didn’t need to treat her like glass. In fact, Natasha preferred it when Steve got rough with her. She loved it when he’d hold her down while he fucked into her hard and fast, and all but screamed in pleasure when he took her from behind, giving her ass the occasional sharp slap. 

Steve on the other hand, had not realized that he enjoyed the rougher side of things too, until they’d started experimenting. He loved the way her nails raked down his back hard enough to sometimes draw blood, the way her teeth would clamp down on his skin to leave bruises that were almost always gone before morning. Once or twice a knife had made an appearance at his bedside table, and she’d drag its razor sharp edge across his chest, just deep enough to draw a line of blood. She often got off better with his hand around her throat, applying just enough pressure to make breathing difficult but not stop it all together. And surprisingly enough to Steve, he did too. He didn’t mind getting slapped around a little either, which Natasha loved. She could tie him down; chain him up, whatever she wanted. He loved it. Of course he could always escape, and nothing she dished out really hurt too badly anyway, but he wouldn’t dare, just to see what she’d do.

He grabs both Natasha’s wrists in one hand, pinning her to the bed, taking his turn to lavish her neck and chest with kisses and nips. He latches on to the spot where her neck and shoulders join and sucks hard, making sure he marks her. Natasha moans at that, her hips arching up against his when he pulls his mouth away to move downwards, fingers flexing for something to grab onto. Steve takes his time, his free hand quickly unlatching the strange front closure clasp of her bra, letting it fall open before sliding inside one of the cups. 

Natasha is almost breathless by the time his thumb and first finger find her nipple, squeezing with just enough pressure to make her hiss through a smile. Steve’s mouth works at her other one, teeth grazing over the soft skin, tongue flicking at it, making it hard. Natasha sighs something in Russian that sounds like encouragement, and Steve smirks against her skin. He slides his hand down her body and flips open her jeans, sliding inside. He isn’t the least bit surprised that she’s not wearing underwear, considering that when she comes over in this state it’s usually for one thing and one thing only. Steve’s fingers slide between her thighs, feeling how wet she already was, and they’d hardly even started. A moan slipped from her throat and her hips arched down into his touch, fingers circling her clit. 

“Jesus Rogers…” She breathes, chewing on her lower lip. Steve loves watching her writhe under him like this, loves all the dirty little things she sometimes moans. He quickens his fingers and she shudders with pleasure. Green eyes open up and look into his, dark and lusty. Natasha struggles against his grip, whimpering in an annoyed way when he won’t release her, won’t let her touch him. Steve takes his hand from her jeans for a moment, only long enough to haul them down enough so she can kick them off, before resuming his play unrestricted by the tight denim. Natasha sighs, and it’s like music to Steve’s ears. Steve kisses down her body, having to regretfully release her hands as he settles himself down further on the mattress, her legs draped over his shoulders. Hands run through his hair, pressing his head down, urging him to let his tongue take over. “C’mon!” She whines when Steve won’t relent, and chooses to instead press feather light kisses to the inside of her thighs. 

Steve just laughs, low and seductive as he pulls his hand away; his tongue trails down her inner thigh, teeth nipping softly at the skin where her hip joins her pelvis. The hand in his hair grips tighter, trying to force him down again, but fails and she groans, clearly frustrated. He looks up at her from his place on the bed and can’t help but grin at the expression on her face. Her eyes are narrowed, but her lips are parted and flushed, chest heaving in anticipation. It’s a beautiful sight, one that Steve can’t get enough of. Teasingly, Steve leans in and swipes his tongue from her entrance to clit once, chuckling at the way her entire body shivers. She arches her back up off the bed, groaning in frustration again. “Fuck sakes, Steve. C’mon!”

The truth was, he enjoys teasing her like this. He likes when she begs for it. Loves it when he brings her just shy of orgasm before stopping, and she curses at him in harsh Russian before she turns the tables on him. Steve just laughs to himself before giving in for the moment, letting his tongue flick at the sensitive little bundle of nerves. He watches as her eyes roll back and her mouth falls open in a soundless moan, while he sucks and licks. He uses one hand to hold her open, tongue pushing into her opening for a moment, making a strangled sound escape her throat before circling around her most sensitive areas. She’s already panting and gasping above him, and Steve loves it. He moves his hand then, sliding two fingers easily inside her, all but moaning himself when he feels just how tight and hot and _wet_ she is. 

He wants to stop right there and bury himself all the way inside her body, fuck her slow and deep until she can’t stand it and begs for him to give it to her. He wants to feel every inch of that delicious heat tighten and convulse around his cock as she comes for him over and over again. He’s achingly hard already inside his own jeans that he never bothered to take off earlier, just listening to the sounds she makes as he laps at her faster, fucking her with his fingers harder. She’s getting close and Steve knows it. Her moans are louder; her skin is hotter under his free hand that’s toying idly with one of her breasts. All it takes is the slight curve of his fingers inside her, grazing them over and over against a sensitive spot before Natasha is moaning breathless phrases in a combination of several languages, her whole body shaking through her orgasm. 

Steve guides her through it with his hand before sitting back on his heels, resisting the urge to at least apply some kind of friction to his aching cock as her body wracks with the passing tremors of pleasure that wash over her. Natasha eventually grabs onto his wrist and throws him down, straddling his hips before leaning down to kiss him again, tasting herself on his tongue. Her teeth tug at his lower lip as she pulls away. “Pants. Off.” She orders breathlessly, and Steve obliges, shucking the too-tight jeans and his boxers along with them. Her hand wraps around his cock, stroking him slowly with a feather light touch that drives Steve crazy. It’s not enough contact, and his hips jerk up against her hand, making Natasha grin deviously. She puts her full weight — which really isn’t that much — on Steve’s thighs, keeping her movements slow and light. Steve groans, knowing this is payback. 

His hands fist into the sheets at his sides, both loving and hating the way she toys with him. Blue eyes focus up at the white ceiling, trying to keep his breathing even, trying to not let on how damn turned on he is. He knows the fact that his cock is already steadily leaking pre-come is a dead giveaway, and that Natasha is just going to keep teasing him until he can’t hold off. 

 _Thank god for Erskine’s serum._ Steve thinks, while biting down on his tongue to keep from moaning. His refractory period is non-existent anymore, something that Natasha loves to take advantage of.

Natasha watches him, continuing to stroke lazily. He feels the sharpness of her other hands nails dig into the skin over his ribcage, just under his armpit, then slide down slowly to his hip. The combination of sensations sends his head reeling, and Steve can’t help the soft sigh that he lets out. That gets a grin from the woman on his lap. She switches hands and does the same to his other side, and this time he moans though gritted teeth, low from the back of his throat. Steve’s hands find her hips of their own accord and his fingers dig into the soft flesh there.

She tires of that after a while and slides down his legs a little more, her mouth joining her hand’s slow stroking of his cock. Her tongue swipes along the head, tasting him before she sinks him deeper into her mouth. Steve’s vision blurs in pleasure, and has to really concentrate on not thrusting up into her mouth. Instead, he reaches down and pushes the hair back out of her face, resting his hand lightly on the back of her head. She swallows once, twice, and takes him the whole way down, her throat contracting around him in all kinds of amazing ways that make Steve shudder. He can already feel the tugging in his gut, the pleasure coiling at the base of his spine. Natasha’s tongue presses against a particular spot, just below the head of his cock that sends a jolt of pleasure through him, and Steve moans, hand fisting in her hair. But she doesn’t mind, just keeps sucking.

It doesn’t take long before he’s coming in hot spurts at the back of her throat, through a low grunt. She takes her time, swallows him down, and pulls off once he’s finished. Steve drags her back up for a rough kiss, his hands instantly sliding between her legs, two fingers pushing back inside her. She sinks down onto his hand, fucking herself with his fingers while she kisses back. His free hand grips at her ass, fingers digging into the toned flesh as she rocks her hips against the fingers inside her. Natasha moans into his mouth, her body dripping it’s fluids down his hand. “Steve! Oh fuck, yes!” She’s sighing breathlessly against his lips as he fingers her faster, making sure to hit the same spot. “Gonna come again… Yeah, right there… Yesyes _yessss_ …” Her words are a jumble as she claws at his chest and shoulders, her face buried in his neck. She breathes quickly, in shallow gasps that catch in her throat. Steve loves the way she whimpers and pleads with him, even when he’s doing exactly what she asks for. 

Her body tenses around him, and he knows she’s there. “C’mon baby.” Steve urges in her ear as she leans helplessly against him. “Come for me.” His voice is husky and low, and she shivers as his breath ghosts across her neck.

And she does. His fingers graze the same hyper sensitive spot inside her and she can’t hold on any more. “Ohgodohgodoh — _STEVE_!!!” She all but shouts as he shudders with pleasure, a surge of wetness flowing from her body, dripping down her thighs as she still straddles Steve’s hips. When Natasha manages to catch her breath, she pulls Steve’s hand away from her and rolls them over, so Steve is once again above her. “C’mon Cap. Fuck me.” She says through kisses. “Give it to me good.”

Steve nods dumbly and slides his already solid cock into her, making her moan lowly again. He rolls his hips against hers slowly, teasingly for a moment, as he returns her open mouthed kisses eagerly. “Goddammit, you’re so fucking wet.” He murmurs against her lips, knowing that she loves when he swears, not that he does often. Steve supports himself on his hands, looking down at her as he rolls into her again. Her hands are gripping onto his sweat-slicked shoulders, knees bent back as far as she can to let him go as deep as possible.

“I thought I told you to fuck me?” Natasha says, looking at him pointedly. He chews on his lip as he gives into her request. He thrusts into her hard and quick, making her moan in delight. He has to admit, this way feels too good, and normally he’d be done in no time. But he already got one orgasm in tonight; Steve could go for a while now. He drops to his elbows and pins her hips to the bed with one hand, holding her at just the right angle to send her already over stimulated body into overdrive. Natasha is moaning louder now, green eyes shut tight against the pleasure that swims though her nerves. Steve leans down to lick the sweat off her neck, his teeth nipping at sensitive skin. He stops suddenly and pulls out. She gives him a sharp glare, but Steve ignores her, flipping her onto her stomach before hauling her onto her hands and knees. He kneels behind her, taking a moment to savour the sight before him. He loves the way her hips curve, loves how tiny her waist is in comparison. She was the perfect hour-glass shape. Steve bites down on his lip again before giving her a rough slap on her left flank. Natasha laughs, almost giggles as he repeats on her right before sinking himself back inside her body.

In this position, she’s at his complete mercy. He forces her shoulders down, so she folds her arms under herself while arching her hips up to him. Steve fucks into her hard, and Natasha moans, rocking herself back each time he slams forward. She’s tightening around him already, and Steve doesn’t care. She’s speaking in some language that Steve can’t understand and he watches as one of her hands reaches up to rub at her clit as he fucks her. Her moans come as a whine, and she comes around him again. He keeps going, doesn’t stop to let her calm down. She asked for ruthless, so it’s what she was getting.

She reaches back a moment later to still his hips, and pulls him from inside her, then shoves him down on the bed. Natasha straddles him with her back facing him and sinks onto his cock again, taking him all in, then starts to ride him hard and fast. Steve watches the way beads of sweat run down her back, making her red locks stick her to her skin. She leans back; hands resting on his chest, letting him buck his hips up into her at his own free will.

He loses count of how many times she comes, but he sees the way her chest is heaving and knows she’s almost had enough. Steve sits up and pulls her down onto her side, and he situates himself behind her; one arm underneath her, pulling her back against his chest, the other arm holding her leg back over both of his. He’s close now, feels the tension in his own body as he thrusts into her slower than before. “Got one more for me?” He asks in her ear. Natasha nods weakly, gasping for air. “Come with me baby. C’mon. Come with me.” 

Steve presses hot kisses down her neck, watching over her shoulder as her hand reaches down to pleasure herself as he fucks her still. He loves to watch, that much she knows. “Yes, fuck!” Natasha breathes as Steve arches into her at a slightly different angle. “Yeah, Steve, just like that!” She whimpers, her body clenching around him tightly again. And that was all it took. Feeling her body convulse around him, tightening around his cock was enough, and Steve couldn’t hold on any more. He comes inside her with a groan, thrusting lazily until he can take no more. 

Natasha collapses forward, burying her face into a pillow with a satisfied moan. Steve rolls onto his back, chest heaving, vision still blurry. He looks over at her, watching as she rolls onto her back to meet his gaze. They stare at one another in silence for a moment or two. The thought that pulses in Steve’s head the same one that had plagued him earlier that day. What did this mean? Had she made up her mind? Was she his now? Was that what this was all about? The only thing he’s sure of is that his heart is full to bursting with some kind of feeling, and he was happy she was here now.

But he also feels sticky with sweat and god only knows what else. He’ll ask her in a minute what this was. Steve sits up and runs a hand through his messy hair, and looks over his shoulder. “I’m going to grab a quick shower. Care to join me?” 

“Mmmm, as tempting as that is,” Natasha says lazily from the pillows, glassy green eyes looking up at him with a smirk. “I don’t think I can stand up right now.” She laughs. 

Steve chuckles to himself as he slides out of the damp sheets and hauls on a pair of pyjama pants. “Suit yourself.” He chides, silently patting himself on the back for a job well done. 

He closes the door behind him and pads quietly to the bathroom, though the door is closed, and the light is on inside. He knocks gently on the door, leaning against the frame. “Hurry up, Buck. I need to get in.”

No sooner had he folded his arms over his chest, than the door swings open. “Sorry.” Bucky mutters, still dripping wet from his shower, his cheeks are flushed, and he looks more flustered than normal. “All yours pal.” 

Steve can’t help the way his eyes scan his best friend’s form as he stands in the light that shines out of the bathroom. Bucky is six feet of solid muscle and steel, dark hair and bright eyes. Tendrils of water run down his neck, following the curve of his pecs and the line of his abs before disappearing in the edge of a towel that’s probably slung too low around his slim hips. Despite what just happened back in his bedroom, Steve feels his mouth water at the sight. He wants to look away, but it’s like a car crash. _Too terrifying and beautiful to pry the eyes from._

 _Stop it, Steve._ He scolds mentally, as Bucky walks away down the hall. Steve’s eyes follow, watching as the towel around his hips follows the curve of his ass. _That was a stupid crush from seventy years ago. You got over it. Natasha’s in your bed. Stop ogling Bucky._

He shakes himself out of his trance and steps into the bathroom. He only takes long enough in the shower — which he sets colder than normal, to better keep the thoughts of Bucky from his mind — to rinse the sweat from his skin and scrub his hair clean. Five minutes at the very most. He hops out and pulls his pants back on, heading back into his room with every intention of sliding back into bed with the beautiful redhead he’d just had his way with.

But as he opens the door, his eyes fall on the bed.

It’s empty.

She’s gone.

She made her choice.

And it wasn’t him.

 


	3. People = Shit

Sleep eludes Bucky as it does most nights, though tonight there was a valid reason: Steve. Bucky had tried his best to not look too shamefaced when he opened the door to see Steve standing there, skin glistening with sweat. Bucky had heard every damn sound that Steve and Natalia had made through the walls, and this time there was no ignoring it. He’d tried to bury his head in his pillows, tried drowning them out with the loud music Tony had filled his iPod with, but it was no good. He could still _hear_. Even if he couldn’t really, the sounds played in his head. Not Natalia’s, either. 

It bothered him. _Why am I paying more attention to Steve than the woman?_ That struck Bucky as a little odd. But those soft, panting moans edged their way into Bucky’s mind, shooting straight for his groin. He’d gotten up to get a cold shower, in hopes that that would put an end to his sudden arousal. But no matter how cold the water was, nothing changed and he was still harder than he’d been in years. Before long, Bucky had cranked the heat back up and took himself in hand, stroking in quick tugs, biting down on his lip. He closed his eyes as the water poured over his skin, seeing blue eyes and blond hair looking up at him from the tile floor, imagining the soft wet heat of a mouth wrapping around his dick. 

It wasn’t until after he’d come with a soft whimper that he realized the face he’d been picturing was Steve’s. 

That’s when Steve had knocked on the bathroom door, wanting to get inside to clean up after his romp with Natalia. He didn’t even bother drying off, just wrapped a towel around his hips, and headed for his room. This is where he finds himself now, several hours later with the sun starting to creep up on the horizon. 

Natalia had left again while Steve was showering, and Bucky hears the disbelieving laugh that left his friends mouth in the next room, before he goes to sleep. Bucky feels the same tug at his heart that he’d felt during his last hypnosis session. 

 _Fuck._ Bucky thinks, dragging a hand down his face as he stares at the ceiling. _I remember this feeling now. I’ve developed a crush. On Steve. What the hell!?_ It’s a frustrating thought. He can’t remember ever feeling this way towards a man before, even back before the war, before the fall. Sure, there’d always been gay people, but back then it was far less open than it was today. Not to mention, the few people that were a little too blatant about their preference were arrested for public indecency, or beaten to death. Bucky shudders. If he’d never felt like this towards Steve before, why was he feeling it now? Was it because Steve had been so kind to him these past few months? Was it because Steve was the one person he spent more time with than anyone else? Maybe it was because Bucky couldn’t really remember what friendship feels like, and he was just confusing his feelings. He stares out his window as the sun comes up, mulling it all over in his head when he hears movement in the next room. Bucky glances at the clock. _Five in the morning, Steve’s getting ready to go for his run._ He thinks with a small smile.

As predicated by Bucky, Steve leaves shortly after sunrise for his morning job with Sam, and Bucky gets up. Whatever this stupid feeling in his chest was, it needed to go away, and soon. If he was to live with Steve again, he couldn’t feel like this. He couldn’t walk around the apartment, knowing full well that Steve was the subject of all his personal fantasies. It wasn’t right. Bucky paces the hallway in his borrowed jogging pants and little else, arms folded over his chest as he tries to figure out how to get past this. Back before the war, he’d just sleep with whoever it was that held his attention at that point. That usually worked. But there was _no way in hell_ that he was sleeping with Steve. Steve would probably ship him off to Fury for even suggesting it. Not to mention Natalia was still in the picture.

But there had been that fight. The two had been shouting and glaring daggers at each other the previous afternoon when he’d come back from his session with Dr. King. What did that mean? Obviously, whatever the issue was, they’d gotten over it enough to fuck each other senseless. Bucky shudders as those same sounds echo in his head.

Steve returns exactly one hour later. His unintentionally skin-tight pale blue S.H.I.E.L.D tee is hardly damp, and his track pants hang off his hips in the most alluring way. It was all Bucky could do to keep from drooling. “Morning!” Steve says with a pleasant smile. “Sleep ok?” 

Bucky shrugs. “Not really.” He fixes Steve with a pointed look, watching as the other man’s face flushes a light pink.

He laughs quietly and scratches at the back of his neck. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be.” Bucky replies, digging in the cupboard for two coffee mugs. “At least someone around here’s getting laid.”

Steve remains silent for a second, and Bucky can feel those intense blue eyes on the back of his head. He manages to suppress a shudder while he pours himself some coffee, as well as one for Steve. “Are you up for heading to the gym later?” Steve asks, as he takes his cup from Bucky’s hand. “Sam’s got some training on the go this morning, so I’ll go with you if you want.”

“Nah, I’ve got a session with Dr. King.” Bucky says regretfully. He’d very much like to hit the gym with Steve, perhaps get some sparring in. He did so love it when they would spar; especially when Steve would tackle him to the ground, and pin him there with his massive body weight. Bucky could still feel the way the muscles in Steve’s warm arm contracted as he squeezed it around his throat, feel the solid weight of Steve’s knee in the small of his back, while the other pinned his metallic arm to the mats. He shudders with the pleasure he’d felt then, and quickly removes his eyes from Steve’s body.

“Again?” Steve asks. “Didn’t you just have one yesterday?”

Bucky shrugs. “The faster I can get through this, the faster I can get Fury to see that I’m not going to kill all of you and let me start training for real.” He replies nonchalantly over his coffee cup. It was the truth. Not long after his first session with Dr. King, Tony had approached him while making an adjustment to his arm, that perhaps once he got himself in order, he’d join the rest in the field. Despite Nick Fury not liking Bucky on the principal that well, The Winter Soldier _had_ shot him, but if Tony pulled the right strings, Bucky could be one of The Avengers in no time.

Bucky had been apprehensive, but after listening to Tony go on and on about training, and technology that he’d come up with to monitor Bucky while in the field, he began to like the idea little more. But before he could even begin the real training Tony had in the works, Bucky needed to figure himself out. In the meantime, Tony had set to work on a new set of combat gear for him, made from stronger, more pliable material than the leather-and-Kevlar Hydra had given him. The prototype suit was hanging in his closet already.

The blond nods and sips his own coffee, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “How’s that going anyway? Didn’t really get a chance to ask you about it yesterday.”

Bucky leans back against the counter, eyes looking everywhere but Steve, who was watching him like a hawk. “It’s good, I guess.” Bucky tells him. “A lot of stuff is coming back, which is a huge plus. I still have a lot of gaps though. Lots of shit that doesn’t make sense yet.” He doesn’t elaborate on the fact that what gets to him most is why he can’t figure out why he’s developed this random crush on Steve. He forgets to mention that every time he goes into hypnosis and he thinks of Steve or their past life, he feels both elated and defeated at once, and drives him crazy.

“You’ll get it back, pal.” Steve says with his usual warm smile, before getting up to get ready for the rest of his day. He places a hand casually on Bucky’s shoulder as he passes by, his hand squeezing gently. It’s a friendly gesture, but even so, it sends a chill through him. As Steve disappears to change into his uniform for whatever S.H.I.E.L.D meeting he has, Bucky sighs and goes to get dressed himself. 

Natalia had taken him shopping several days ago, and even that had nearly sent him into a panic attack. But it had been a rewarding day. Several new pairs of jeans filled a previously empty drawer and a pile of new t-shirts filled another. He picks out one with the logo of a band — Judas Priest — that Tony had gotten him into on the front, and a dark pair of what Natalia had called ’slim fit’ jeans. They hugged his legs a little tighter than he was used to, but he liked the way they looked when they were tucked inside his loosely tied combat boots. Natalia had said he looked like a metalhead ( _whatever that means_ ) with his long hair and constant broody stare. 

Steve is getting ready to leave when Bucky finishes dressing and gives him a small smile. Bucky feels his heart contract in an uncomfortable way as he returns it as best he can. As Steve heads off, Bucky scolds himself for being so jittery. 

His appointment with Dr. King creeps up on him later that afternoon and Bucky finds himself once again on his back on her couch, counting back from ten with his eyes closed. This time it takes a while before the swirling colours behind his eyes materialize and he sees the scene before him. 

“Where are you, James?” Dr. King is asking. 

_I’m on the edge of a cliff with the Howling Commandos. We’re waiting for a train carrying Dr. Zola. We’ve been ordered to capture him and take him back to base. Steve’s plan is to zip-line onto the train when it passes between the mountains. I make a joke about it being payback for making him ride The Cyclone at Coney Island that made him throw up. He laughs. But the train is coming, and we have to go. We all fall out; Steve first, than me, then the others… Just like it always is. Getting on the train is almost too easy, and we see why. Gunmen separate me and Steve, trap him in a room with someone carrying one of Zola’s super-weapons. I hold my own for a while; take down two of the men shooting at me, until I’m out of ammo. Close quarters, I don’t do so hot. Steve has taken down his opponent and tosses me his pistol, and I finish off the last gunman with Steve’s help._

Bucky feels his chest tighten and shifts uncomfortably on the couch, his right hand tugging at the neck of his shirt. “It’s all right, James. We’re right here.” Dr. King says softly in his ear. “Keep going, you’re doing fine.” 

_But the guy Steve took down didn’t stay down. He fired another blast and Steve manages to protect us both behind his shield, and deflects the ray. It takes out the side of the_ _train. We’re both thrown back by the force of it and Steve’s shield falls beside me. So I pick it up to try and cover Steve and start shooting at the Hydra guard._

His breathing picks up, and Bucky feels himself start to sweat. He knows what this is. This is the day he died. Why is he remembering this? He starts to panic a little, but he feels a slight, warm hand slide into his, squeezing, grounding him. “What’s happening now?” Dr. King asks. 

_I’m firing round after round but it’s not doing anything to the walking weapon. They just keep bouncing off. But he charges his weapon again and fires at me. I’m not strong like Steve, and the force if blows me off my feet. I drop Steve’s shield and somehow catch onto a railing that’s attached to the blown out side of the train. Oh god, I’m going to die. I can’t pull myself up, there’s nothing to catch my feet on. I don’t want to die! There’s something I still need to tell Steve! I can’t die yet! He has to know!_

He’s writhing on the couch, unable to wake up from this nightmare. He hadn’t seen this day in years. It had been wiped from his memory. But he remembers what happens now, it’s clear. Bruce has both his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, holding him down. He’s sweating, feels it run down his back, but he still can’t wake up. Tears are running down the corners of his closed eyes.

_Steve is trying to reach me, but he can’t get close enough. There’s no time. I can’t hold on, and I feel the railing start to give way. Steve is frantic, trying to stretch his hand closer so I can take it, but he can’t do it. I can’t reach. The railing snaps free and I’m falling. Oh god I’m falling, and screaming. I see Steve’s helpless face as I fall, and he screams out to me, but it’s too late. I fell. I died. And I never got to tell Steve that I love him._

Bucky comes to with a gasp, only to find himself on the floor of the office. His chest is still heaving with each breath, and his whole body is drenched with sweat. “I never got to tell Steve I loved him.” Bucky repeats, his voice small and distant, straggled through the tears that pour down his face. He sits up and pulls his knees to his chest and buries his face, sobbing harder than he thought possible. 

It all made sense; the urge to find Steve all those months ago before he’d been brought to Stark Tower, the tugging in his chest at the earlier memories, the giddy feeling when Steve smiled at him, the only being able to hear Steve’s pleasured moans. It wasn’t just a crush. He’d been in love with Steve back then. He’d always loved Steve, still did even now. And Hydra had made him forget it. Bucky feels Bruce’s arm slide around his shoulders as the other man sits on the carpeted floor beside him, his hand rubbing Bucky’s shoulder comfortingly. Bucky leans into him, unable to reign himself back in, get himself under control. He loved Steve with his entire heart, and he’d never gotten the chance to let him know.

He isn’t sure how long Bruce sits beside him, letting him get all his emotions out, or how long Dr. King sits at his other side, telling him how big a breakthrough this is. All he knows is that he can’t go back and look at Steve right now, not when he knows what he knows now. Pain floods through him. Steve had Natalia now, and no matter how much Bucky loved him, Steve would never be his. He was positive that even if he DID tell Steve what he felt, that Steve would reject him; he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a queer. Captain America _wasn’t allowed_ to be a queer. 

Bucky feels his throat go raw, and his tears run dry some time later and he lifts his head. Bruce gives him a saddened smile and passes him a tissue. “Go back to the apartment, James. Take a break. We don’t need to do any more today.” Bruce says, helping Bucky to his feet. 

Bucky just nods, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt. He doesn’t have the energy to speak right now, so he just leaves the office. His shoulders are slumped even more than normal as he walks back to the elevator. Jarvis programs the apartment level. Steve is already back from his meeting and is lounging on the couch, reading a book that he’s got propped up on the arm of the couch beside him. “Hey Buck.” Steve says with a warm smile, looking over the back of the couch. “Didn’t expect you back so soon, those sessions usually go on for hours. How’d it go?”

“Not a good time, Steve.” Bucky mutters, dragging his feet as he moves lifelessly though the hallway to his own bedroom. Steve doesn’t follow, but Bucky can already feel his concern. And that alone sends a stab through his heart as he flops into a useless heap on his bed. 

He stares off into space, mind reeling. What was he supposed to do with this information? A crush was bad enough, those tended to just go away, but to be in love with someone? Bucky curls in on himself and closes his eyes. His heart hurts so badly the rest of his body starts to follow suit; head pounding, muscles aching for no reason. _Maybe I could just sleep this away?_ He thinks. _Maybe I was better off with Hydra wiping my memories. At least I didn’t have to feel this pain. Jesus, I’d rather have them welding my arm to my shoulder with no anaesthetic than keep feeling like this._

But he can’t turn it off. He doesn’t know how. 

Voices filter in from the kitchen. Steve is talking with Natalia again, this time not about one another. “I dunno what to tell you, Steve.” Natalia’s voice says gently. “Maybe he just had a bad recall again.”

“The last time that happened, he didn’t talk to anyone for a month!” Steve replies. He sounds worried, and that just makes Bucky’s heart hurt more. “He was just starting to come around, Nat. I was just starting to get him back.”

“I know, baby.” Natalia says, and that throws Bucky. Pet names were never her style. “Maybe he just wants some time alone? I mean, we have been kinda crowding him lately. I took him out one day, Pepper the next…”

He can hear Steve sigh, and he slap of his hands against his legs. “It didn’t seem like that.” Steve says. “He didn’t even look at me, just walked away like I’d done something wrong. What’d I do wrong, Nat?”

They go on talking about him for a while, and Bucky can’t take it. He hates knowing that Steve is worried about him like that, but at the same time he can’t very well just go out there and explain what exactly was wrong. He hates this entire situation. _Why couldn’t I just leave all this alone? Why did I have to know? Why did I have to remember that day?_ He thinks angrily. 

Day passes into night, and Steve and Natalia have lapsed into silence. Bucky can hear the television in the background. Eventually it turns off, and he hears two sets of footsteps move down the hall to Steve’s room. Bucky rolls his eyes, knowing that when they go to bed, sleeping is not on the menu. It takes no time before he can hear Natalia’s soft sighing and Steve’s softer words. He can’t deal with this, not tonight. 

But instead of the same state of arousal hitting him like a freight train as it had the night before, Bucky finds anger bubbling up in his chest. Anger because Natalia doesn’t treat Steve the way he should be treated. Anger because Bucky was never going to be able to tell Steve how he feels, anger at the fact that he’d never told Steve what he felt all those years ago and most of all, anger because he’d never _know_. He can’t sit here and listen to the couple in the other room going at it again. So he drags himself from the bed and changes. 

A pair of fitted black pants that echo the ones The Winter Soldier had worn hang in the back of his closet. The knees are reinforced with some kind of extra strength material, and the pockets are much less bulky than his previous pair. With it hangs a new utility belt with multiple holsters for weapons of all kinds that will strap around his thighs when worn. A vest made of some kind of lightweight, though somehow bulletproof material sits with it, and a brand new pair of boots lay on his closet floor. Attached to the belt is a mask and goggles, much like the set he’d had before he lost on the bridge when he’d been sent to kill Steve. It sends a chill through him, seeing a more modern version of his old self staring at him from his closet. The gear had been a gift from Tony, who said that his old stuff was too damaged to even consider repairing. What lay before him was the prototype to his new uniform with S.H.I.E.L.D.

 _Might as well at least get the feel for this new gear if I’m going in the field with it eventually._ He thinks as he dons everything but the vest and mask, opting instead for a plain black tank that hugs his body tightly. With his hair tied off his face, Bucky feels that he almost looks too much like The Soldier did. _Maybe I should just cut it all off._ Bucky thinks, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear. _Start over._  

As an afterthought, Bucky slides open the top drawer of his dresser where a set of training knives sit. They’re only plastic and hard rubber, but they still carry the same weight that the combat blades had. He slips them into the four holsters on his belt and heads out of his bedroom. Steve and Natalia are too busy with each other to hear him leave, and he slips from the apartment in silence. 

“Good evening, Sargent Barnes.” Jarvis says politely as the doors of the elevator slide shut. “Where is it you are looking to go?” 

“The gym.” Bucky almost snaps. 

“Of course, sir.” 

The elevator moves then, and Bucky close his eyes. His feelings towards Steve had to be buried, buried so deep that they’d never resurface and risk putting their friendship at risk. Bucky sighs when the elevator doors slide open again when he reaches the gym floor and exists. “Can we get some music going, Jarvis?”

“Certainly sir. Anything in particular?” Jarvis asks. 

“Whatever Tony had put onto that thing he gave me.”

“Your iPod sir?” 

“Yeah, that thing. Whatever’s on that is good.” Bucky strides through the gym to where to punching bags and other boxing equipment sits. He grabs a jump rope from the stand and wraps an end around both hands, spinning the rope to the fast beat on the heavy song that starts playing over the sound system. Bucky knows he needs to at least warm up some before he goes straight for the heavy bags, needs to get his heart rate up like Sam taught him.

The music is extremely aggressive, and Bucky instantly loves it. The vocalist was a woman, though her scream sounded more masculine than most men. It was deep and raw, but still completely legible. The guitarists are incredibly technical and precise, and the drums are heavy and loud. Jarvis tells him the band is called Arch Enemy, and Bucky makes a mental note to listen to more of them later.

He keeps up a constant flow of jumping rope for nearly three full songs before his knees start to give out. So he drops it and hits the mat. He spreads his feet shoulder width apart and places his left arm behind his back, with his right centred at his chest. He sets a steady pace of push-ups, going easily through fifty before is arm starts to wobble even a little bit. _Funny._ He thinks as he burns through another fifty with no issue. _Back in basic training, twenty left me a little winded._ He smirks to himself as the music changes to another band. 

Like the first, the musical side is incredibly technical and heavy, and the vocalist is as precise with his voice as he is with his lyrics. They’re shockingly well written for the genre, Bucky notes as he flips from his stomach to his back. Bucky feels a small sneer of a smile grace his lips as he listens to the song, doing countless crunches until his abdominals burn. A light sweat is starting to grace his skin, and he starts to feel good. He almost forgets about the reason he’s found himself in here so late, and instead focuses on the way his muscles start to tingle in that pleasant, almost exerted way. As the next song starts, Bucky flips himself up from the mat and pulls a pair of fingerless leather gloves from the back of his belt, strapping them tight around is wrists. He throws a few punches at one of the heavy bags designed with Steve’s strength in mind, head nodding a little in time with the song playing. 

_Blank stares from broken men_

_So withered from the poisons they can't remember when_

_There were once honest reasons._

_It's all a lie, it died 100,000 miles ago._

_Pretending I'm still here._

_Justify what I've become, sanctify what I've become._

_Amazing disgrace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me._

_Better lost if this is found, best blinded never to see._

_The race to save face, nothing now is what we meant it to be._

_Pretending I'm still here._

_It's a system now, intertwined._

_Take your place in the line to be ground by the gears of the masterpiece._

_Betrayal._

_Justify what I've become, sanctify what I've become._

_Suffered consequence_

_It's been so long since any piece of this made any kind of sense._

_You anoint the king, I'll burn everything down to ashes._

_You giveth, I taketh away._

_It's a system now, intertwined._

_Take your place in the line to be ground by the gears of the masterpiece._

_Betrayal._

Seeing that the bag won’t move when he puts even a little effort in, Bucky starts to hit it harder, leaving all his frustrations and emotions behind with each punch.

The music changes again to a different band. This one is a little different, Bucky thinks as the first twenty-seconds of the song just sounds like noise. But as the actual melody kicks in, with the harsh, angry sound of the vocalists scream, Bucky finds himself really enjoying it in the moment. “Jarvis, keep this singer on. I like it.” Jarvis does as asked and the music gets louder. He throws a hard combo at the bag, adding his elbows and knees to his movements. By the second chorus, Bucky finds himself muttering the words ‘People Equal Shit’ along with the singer. 

He stops hitting for a second, jumping in place, shaking the loose strands of hair from his eyes and shaking out his right hand before settling into a low combat stance. He reaches into the right holster where he stored one of his training knives and unclips it, spinning it around in his fingers before clenching it in his fist. Bucky adds slashes and jabs with the knife to his motions, concentrating on changing hands as fast as he can to distract the opponent that was the punching bag.

Bucky had completely forgotten about Steve and Natalia by now, his mind closed off to everything but the complex manoeuvres he executed perfectly. It had been years since he’d trained this hard. Even with Sam and Steve and their weekly schedule, Bucky never felt this good while in the gym. Between the music getting him riled up, and the fact he can actually push himself past his limits for a change, Bucky feels better than ever. 

It isn’t until the song changes again that he slows down. It’s not one he’s familiar with, but the opening melody is slow and sad. The same singer as the previous songs takes a different tone to his voice, and it’s filled with a hundred emotions at once. 

_Bury all your secrets in my skin_

_Come away with innocence, and leave me with my sins_

_The air around me still feels like a cage_

_And love is just a camouflage for what resembles rage again_

Bucky pauses for a moment to listen, but shakes off the irritating brush of emotion that touches his mind. He turns back to the punching bag and hit it a few more times, though not half as focused as he had been.

_So if you love me, let me go._

_And run away before I know._

_My heart is just too dark to care._

_I can't destroy what isn't there._

_Deliver me into my fate_

_If I'm alone I cannot hate_

_I don't deserve to have you_

_My smile was taken long ago_

_If I can change I hope I never know_

Bucky’s punch misses and he stumbles a little bit while listening closer to the lyrics. He wants to tell Jarvis to change it, because the song is ruining his momentum, but something stops him from doing so. The same tightness and weight from the day before presses down on his chest, and thoughts of Steve surge back.

_I still press your letters to my lips_

_And cherish them in parts of me that savour every kiss_

_I couldn't face a life without your lights_

_But all of that was ripped apart when you refused to fight_

There’s a burning in the back of Bucky’s eyes as he keeps on listening, his hands falling to his sides. His throat tightens and he swallows thickly to clear it, but it won’t go. His vision blurs for a moment before clearing as a heavy tear splashes to the mat below his feet.

_So save your breath, I will not care._

_I think I made it very clear._

_You couldn't hate enough to love._

_Is that supposed to be enough?_

_I only wish you weren't my friend._

_Then I could hurt you in the end._

_I never claimed to be a saint_

_Ooh, my own was banished long ago_

_It took the death of hope to let you go_

By now his legs stop supporting him and Bucky sags to the floor, back against the punching bag as the last verse of the song plays over the speakers. He hangs his head, pushing the tear off his face, only for its place to be taken by another.

_So break yourself against my stones_

_And spit your pity in my soul_

_You never needed any help_

_You sold me out to save yourself_

_And I won't listen to your shame_

_You ran away - you're all the same_

_Angels lie to keep control_

_Ooh, my love was punished long ago_

_If you still care, don't ever let me know_

_If you still care, don't ever let me know_

 

The song ends, but Bucky still can’t pick himself up off the floor. He tells Jarvis to cut the music, and sits in silence. He aches everywhere, and not from the training. His whole body feels heavier than it should, despite his left arm being composed entirely of steel. The red clock over the mirror and behind the bags reads nearly two in the morning. _Natalia and Steve must be finished by now._ Bucky thinks, eventually dragging himself to his feet. He’s exhausted and wants to sleep, if his mind will let him, that is.

By the time he gets back to the apartment, he’s already unlatched the belt and holsters from around his waist and thighs, and starts pulling his shirt off as he steps inside. The first sound that meets his ears is Steve’s low, breathy moans. Bucky just huffs and tosses his belongings in on his bed before shuffling quietly to the bathroom for a quick shower before bed. He passes Steve’s room and unintentionally peeks in through the small crack that’s left open. 

Steve is half-sitting half-lying against the headboard of his bed, with Natalia straddling his lap. Her head is tossed back, both eyes closed and a pleasured smile on her lips, while her hips roll slowly and sensually against Steve’s. His eyes are focused only on her, hands resting on her hips, guiding her along. Bucky can see the pleasured, loving expression that crosses Steve’s face as he looks at the woman, and it sends a sharp pain through his heart. Bucky rips his eyes from the scene before him and heads off to get his shower. 

The steamy water runs down his skin and soaks his hair as he hangs his head under the spray, hoping to drown his sorrows as he stands there. But it doesn’t help. His mind is filled with images of Steve, coupled with the sounds he’d heard over the past number of days, and it’s maddening. He shouldn’t be getting hard thinking about his friend. But he is, and it’s insane. Bucky knows there’s no ignoring it either; especially not while those two were still going strong in the bedroom. He feels himself growing harder the more he thinks about Steve, the longer the pictures the way those perfect lips part each time he sighs. 

Without thinking, his right hand runs down his abdomen, then wraps around his cock, stroking in long, slow pulls that make him just that much harder. With his eyes closed, Bucky can’t help but fantasize…

_They’re together in his bedroom, stripped naked and already sweating. The room smells like sex, and Bucky loves it. He’s on his back, legs propped up and knees spread wide as Steve settles between his thighs. Their mouths come together in a long, slow kiss that seems more practiced than it is, with Steve’s hand is sliding between their bodies amidst it all. It’s warm and slightly callused as it wraps around Bucky, jerking him off slow to make the pleasure last. Bucky reaches down and repays the favour. Steve is impressive in terms of size, apparently another plus of Erskine’s serum he thinks, before Steve’s mouth moves to his jawline, then his neck._

Bucky can hardly stifle a moan, his hand working a little faster now. He bites down on his lip and braces his left hand against the tile wall, his right thumb circling the head of his cock a few times before he goes back to stroking. 

_Steve’s pressing a trail of hot kisses down his body, teeth nipping at his hipbones before his mouth joins his hand on Bucky’s cock. Bucky groans, both his hands fisting in the soft cotton sheets on the bed. Steve’s mouth is hot and wet as it slides up and down around him, his tongue circling in downright sinful ways. He gives a harder suck and Bucky has to deliberately concentrate on not thrusting up, not choking Steve with his dick. But Steve just laughs, sending vibrations through his body that make pleasure coil at the base of his spine._

Bucky’s mouth falls open as the water continues to pour down on him. The heat makes his skin that much more sensitive, and the way his hand feels stroking himself is getting to the point where it almost feels too good. His breath comes in short gasps now. 

_He’s still on his back as Steve hovers above him, big blue eyes blown wide, perfect lips twisting into a devious, shit-eating grin. He hears the tell-tale click of the cap of a bottle of lubricant, then feels a cool, slick finger slide between his cheeks. Bucky huffs out a groan as Steve’s finger circles his hole before slowly pushing inside. It’s a small stretch, but pleasant. Steve’s mouth is on his, drinking down the soft whimpers that leave Bucky’s throat. A second finger joins the first, and Bucky whines in pleasure, his right hand reaching up to fist in Steve’s hair, his left still clutching at the sheets. Steve just grins that same grin, fucking his fingers inside slowly, intentionally grazing his prostate each time._

“Goddammit, Steve…” Bucky breathes, stroking himself faster. He can feel the pressure in his gut, the tug at the base of his spine. He whimpers involuntarily. 

_Steve’s moved his hand, leaving Bucky feeling empty and open and needy. But he watches a Steve slicks himself up, stroking his own cock in a lube-covered hand, watching Bucky watch him. He’s biting down on one go those perfect lips and Bucky can hardly stand it. But then he’s leaning down again, hitching Bucky’s legs back just a bit before he presses his tip at Bucky’s hole. Steve’s lips capture his as he pushes inside, slow and careful. The stretch is considerable, but Bucky can deal. Steve takes his time and is soon buried inside Bucky, and it’s the most incredible feeling._

A low groan leaves his lips as he tightens his grip on his cock. He’s so close now it hurts. 

_Steve is fucking into him hard and fast, panting and gasping for air. Bucky moans, his fingers dragging down Steve’s shoulders as Steve’s cock inside him constantly grazes against his prostate, making him shudder. “Come for me, Buck.” Steve murmurs low in his ear, teeth nipping at its lobe. “Come for me…”_

With a moan, Bucky comes hard, hot spurts running down his fist as he strokes himself through it. Hot water washes everything down the drain, and Bucky takes a minute to catch his breath. He feels wrong, thinking about Steve that way, but at the same time, he hadn’t come so hard in years. It makes him feel dirty.

Bucky finishes cleaning himself up and leaves the bathroom, dressing in a pair of black sweats that he’d left in there the night before. Steve and Natalia have finally finished up, and Bucky moves silently through the hallway to get something to drink before bed. He’s gulping down water when he hears movement coming from Steve’s room. _She’s leaving him again!?_ Bucky thinks in disbelief, listening to the way she hurriedly pulls her clothing back on. _They fought about this yesterday, and she’s still going to keep leaving? Steve deserves much better than this. She can’t keep hurting my friend._ Bucky feels anger well up in him again, and settle over his features. 

His eyes go cold and dead, mouth sets into a hard line as he counts her paces. At five, he lays his glass silently on the counter. At seven his now free hand is reaching for a knife in the block on the counter. At ten, his arm retracts, ready to fire the missile, and at fifteen, he throws the blade. It embeds itself in the wall, millimetres from Natalia’s face, and the woman stares at it as it wobbles. Her eyes dart to the side and she spots him, before she rips the knife from the drywall. “What are you doing, James?” Natasha asks in a soft tone. Bucky thinks it’s cute that she thinks Steve is sleeping in the room down the hall. Bucky knows he isn’t, he’s still awake, and too pissed off that she’s leaving him again to sleep. “You don’t want to fight me.”

“No,” Bucky replies, his voice low and dangerous. Intimidating, like the Winter Soldier’s had been. “But if you hurt him, I will make sure your death is as slow and as painful as physically possible.”

Natalia raises an eyebrow and moves slowly into the kitchen. “What are you talking about?” She asks coyly, slipping the knife back into the block beside Bucky.

“This whole leaving in the middle of the night? That doesn’t work with Steve. You can’t play with him like this. Unlike you, he’s got feelings. Unlike you, he has a heart.” Bucky spits, his voice still low, so Steve won’t hear. 

The woman gives him a knowing smirk and scoffs. “If I remember correctly, you were one of those who taught me that having a heart would get me killed.” She almost purrs, her finger trailing down Bucky’s still naked chest. Natalia’s eyes have gone dark now as they look up into his. “I think it was right around the time when the tables were turned, and I was fucking _your_ brains out.

Bucky’s spine stiffens and he bats her hand away. “That was then. The Red Room was a different animal. _I_ was a different animal.” He fixes her with a deadly glare and steps closer, looming over her. “And I swear to every god that there is that if you hurt Steve — the one _good_ person left — I will be the one who kills you. If you hurt him, I will hunt you down. And you know I can, because _I_ trained _You_.”

“Who says I’m hurting anyone?” Natalia asks, stepping back. She leans against the counter to steady herself as she slides her feet into her stiletto heeled boots, zipping them up her slender, deadly legs. 

“I know Steve well enough to know when he’s suffering. I know Steve well enough to see the pain in his eyes. And I damn well know him enough to know that he’ll never talk about the way he feels, even if it eats him alive. So if you want him, have him. If you don’t, then let him go. _Stop fucking stringing him along_.” He hisses the last sentence and Natalia laughs lowly. 

“Why James, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were in love with Steve yourself.” Natalia chides with a smirk. Bucky’s eyes darken over even more and before he can get another word in she turns to leave again. 

“If you walk out that door, don’t dare come back, or it’s the last thing you do.” Bucky snarls. 

But it does no good; she pushes the open door button on the elevator and slips inside. The heavy steel doors slide shut and she’s gone. Bucky can already hear Steve shuffling around in his room, doing his best to keep himself together. Steve is trying to be strong, and Bucky knows it’s for his sake, not Steve’s own. But Bucky wants nothing more than to go into that bedroom and wrap his arms — well, maybe just the flesh one — around Steve and tell him that he doesn’t need Natalia, that she’s never going to be right for him. Bucky longs to press his lips to Steve’s temple and tell him that no one could ever love Steve the way he does, the way he always has. 

Steve emerges from the bedroom with his shoulders hunched, hair still a mess in nothing but a pair of blue plaid pyjama pants. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” He asks. Their eyes meet and Bucky swears there are already tears forming in those bright, sky-blue eyes.

Bucky nods, heart breaking at the defeat and intense vulnerability in Steve’s usually so strong voice. “Yeah pal, she’s gone. I’m sorry.” Steve nods once and turns to go back to bed. “You gonna be ok? Need anything?”

“Nah, Buck. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” Steve replies. But Bucky can hear the way his voice cracks in the middle, and it rips him apart. 

“I’m just down the hall, if you need someone to talk to.” Bucky calls. Steve just nods and goes back into his room, locking his door when it’s shut. Bucky walks down the hall after him but doesn’t push to talk, just silently slides to the floor with his back against Steve’s door, listening to make sure everything is ok. He can hear the way Steve cough and tries to make it seem like he’s clearing his throat, hears the way he sniffs. Bucky knows that Steve is so far away from ok that Steve doesn’t even know what the term means anymore. But instead of barging in and making things worse, Bucky sits silently there on the floor like Steve had done for him so many times before, and keeps an ear out. 

Just in case Steve needs him…Like he needs Steve. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own the lyrics.   
> They belong to Lamb of God and Slipknot.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for any and all comments and kudos! I love hearing what you guys think.


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